


tender we fall

by unbridgeabledistances



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Fix-It, Fluff, M/M, and some sweet sweet communication, i love my boys but they simply have no emotional intelligence, just a one-shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27940016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unbridgeabledistances/pseuds/unbridgeabledistances
Summary: Mickey met his eyes. His voice was quiet. “I want to do whatever the fuck you want to do, Gallagher.”Ian rolled his eyes.Fucking unbelievable.“That’s just it, dumbass! I want to do what you want to do, too! I want to listen to you, because I love you, and I care about your feelings as much as you care about mine!”--Or, Ian and Mickey talk about monogamy.(Set after Season 11, Ep 1)
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Comments: 10
Kudos: 250





	tender we fall

**Author's Note:**

> i literally wrote this in twenty minutes after watching the episode bc i need a fix-it fic!!!

They walked back to the Gallagher house from Lip’s place after a couple of hours. The streets were cool and quiet, and Ian had his arm wrapped around Mickey’s shoulder, tucked into the upper front pocket of Mick’s tattered flannel muscle shirt, where his hand had been resting for most of the evening. Ian knew they had a lot to talk about- for one thing, Mickey still had the fucking half of an envelope crumpled in the front of his pants pocket- and for another, Mickey kept avoiding eye contact, doing that weird fucking squirrely thing he always did whenever he didn’t want to talk to Ian about whatever vulnerable bullshit was on his mind.

Walking like this, leaning on each other and entangled on the sidewalk, reminded Ian of walking with Mickey on this road _way_ back a couple years ago, when they had just fucked on the baseball courts, battered and bruised. Back when Ian’s brain wasn’t working but Mickey still made his heart race, for just that brief moment, and then helped drag his sloppy, stumbling body home- stopping to lean and kiss against walls in dark alleys on the way, singing “Love is a Battlefield” at the top of their lungs. It was moments like this that Ian never, ever doubted Mickey’s love for him, and only him; sure, when Mickey had been in the depths of the closet he would fuck random women, fuck _anyone_ that would shroud who he truly was, but now that Ian was fully his, and had promised to go through all this wedding and commitment bullshit for him, Ian thought that they had been… on the same page. That Mickey belonged to him, that he belonged to Mickey.

They turned into the chain-link fence marking the Gallagher yard, quietly fumbled up the front steps together. Before they reached the door, Ian turned.

“Listen, Mickey, we gotta talk about this.”

Mickey sighed, resigned, and still wouldn’t meet Ian’s eyes. “Talk? What the fuck do you wanna talk about, Gallagher. You said you wanted to be monogamous or whatever the fuck it is so that’s what we’re gonna do.”

Ian breathed out sharply. “Yeah, Mick, but we can’t just do that because it’s what I want to do. That’s the point of the whole thing. We have to go with what we _both_ want. And if you want to fuck other people, I’m gonna have to deal with that. Hell, you dealt with me riding up on other guys for a long time before we were officially together like this, I’m allowed to let you do whatever the fuck you want to do.”

For the first time that night, Mickey met his eyes. His voice was quiet. “I want to do whatever the fuck you want to do, Gallagher.”

Ian rolled his eyes. _Fucking unbelievable_. “That’s just it, dumbass! I want to do what you want to do, too! I want to listen to you, because I love you, and I care about your feelings as much as you care about mine!”

Mickey huffed, and turned his eyes downward to the wood slats of the front porch once again. He reached into the front pocket of his jeans. Uncrumpled the envelope. Turned it towards Ian.

It was… blank.

Mickey looked directly at Ian.

“Look. I… don’t want to fuck other people. But I wasn’t… I wasn’t sure if you did?”

Ian felt his heart bloom, and kept staring directly in Mickey’s eyes as he kept talking.

“Listen, all I care about is you too, okay? And I just want to make you happy in this whole thing. That’s all I care about. My life’s down the fucking tubes, but yours isn’t, and so I want to make sure this whole marriage thing just makes you the happiest bastard you can be. So I’m wasn’t gonna write any bullshit down, about monogamy or whatever else, because all I really wanted was for you to choose what we’re doing here.”

They were quiet for a moment- then Ian rolled his eyes fondly. “See, was that so hard?”

Mickey playfully shoved his chest. “Fuck you, Gallagher.”

Ian gently shoved him back. “But hey, seriously, Mick- your life isn’t down the tubes, or whatever. We’re married. I’m your husband. We get to build a life, and we get to build it together. Isn’t that what we both wanted, when we decided to do this?”

Mickey looked at him again, and Ian almost shuddered- Ian would never get tired of being pierced by Mickey’s eyes, of being fully seen by him.

“Yeah. Huh. I guess we both didn’t really think about all the logistics about what we were signing up for before we did this, huh?”

Ian smirked. “Yeah.”

“It’s just… it’s you and me, Gallagher. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, that’s all I’ve wanted this whole time. Fuck the marriage stuff, I just want to keep hanging out. You and me. Til whenever the fuck one of us croaks and we can’t anymore.”

Ian grinned. “What a romantic bastard.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now c’mere, _lover_.”

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! comments/kudos make my heart happy:)


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